Boys basketball: Baird's 30 leads Holy Family past Broomfield

Sophomore helps Tigers pull away in second half

BROOMFIELD — Holy Family's Tanner Baird was already having a nice little season before Saturday's rivalry atmosphere at home against Broomfield triggered something extra in the sophomore.

Averaging 12.6 points through the Tigers' first five games, Baird exploded for 30 against the team's cross-town rival. With the way the back-and-forth nature of the game, not only was Baird's scoring output impressive, it was likely the difference in a close 60-52 win.

"It's always a huge game," Baird said. "The crowds get into it and we all know a lot of players. It's fun. I was just having fun. I got off to a good start. It was close the whole game but I think our attacking their press break at the end was definitely a big key to extending the lead a little bit."

Holy Family's Tanner Baird tries to get a shot off while being defended by Mason Keeler of Broomfield. Go to BoCoPreps.com for more photos. (Cliff Grassmick / Staff Photographer)

At the end of the third quarter the Tigers (5-1) led 37-33, which was the largest lead for either team at that point in the game. Behind feeding off a big third quarter from Baird, who did not score in the second quarter, the Tigers pulled away by kicking off the fourth quarter on a 7-1 run.

Led by Tanner Garner's 13 points, the Eagles (2-3) had three players in double figures. Steven Croell scored 12 and Michael Georgiton added 11. But even against the visiting team's balanced attack, the Tigers defense prevailed.

"Starting this rivalry back up again seven years ago was a great idea," Broomfield coach Terrance Dunn said. "It's a fun atmosphere, the student sections get into it and the guys truly want to win. We like coming to play here because Holy Family is a great program and it's always a great game.

Advertisement

"They're a great defensive team and we're struggling on offense so it was a bad matchup for us this year. But our schedule is tougher than it was last year so we've got to keep fighting and keep building and we'll be where we want to be in February."

Broomfield will play in the Cherry Creek tournament next week. Holy Family will have two more home games against Pueblo South and Pueblo West before the winter break.

Article Comments

We reserve the right to remove any comment that violates our ground rules, is spammy, NSFW, defamatory, rude, reckless to the community, etc.

We expect everyone to be respectful of other commenters. It's fine to have differences of opinion, but there's no need to act like a jerk.

Use your own words (don't copy and paste from elsewhere), be honest and don't pretend to be someone (or something) you're not.

Our commenting section is self-policing, so if you see a comment that violates our ground rules, flag it (mouse over to the far right of the commenter's name until you see the flag symbol and click that), then we'll review it.